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Niamh O'Donnell
Personality Impatient. Insolent. Angry. Wild. Sarcastic. Smart-mouthed. Impulsive. She tries to be good, but she's washing up against the crags of being seventeen, the boulders of having the stereotypical Irish temper, and the great giant granite cliff of being an Ahroun. She's working on the self-control but it's definitely an upward climb. When her personality wheels around she can be great fun and a true, loyal friend, but she's just as likely to curse like a sailor and punch a wall in a darker mood. She has a gentle, spiritual side, but it's mostly drowned out by loud punk music and piercings. Sheet Freebies Four Merits (Daredevil - 3, Ancestor Ally - 1) Four Flaws (Curiosity - 2, Overconfident - 1, Insane Past Life - 1) Background: Fetish - 2 (2 Freebies) Background: Rites - 1 (1 Freebie) Gnosis - 2 (4 Freebies) Melee - 1 (2 Freebies) Willpower - 2 (2 Freebies) Performance - 2 (4 Freebies) Brawl - 1 (2 Freebies) Expertises & Specialties Craft: Expertise in Metalwork. Niamh has a love and a talent for metalwork that outshines everything else. She loves to create, even as it's her moon-bound nature to destroy. Above all, deep in her heart, she wants to be useful and of service. So far, the best and most reliable way she's found is to make useful things. She's been working at it since she was nearly thirteen, putting all the focus and energy in it she hasn't put into, say, personal discipline. Melee: Axes. Some Garou fight with claws alone, but ask Niamh: she's a tool using monkey, and while she relishes the opportunity to slice the guts out of a Fomori, she prefers to use a weapon. Fang daggers were popular back home for those who were not the lucky few to earn klaives, but Niamh always had to be different. It has to be said that axes were a favorite weapon of Gideon's. She also has a particular affinity to them because they were a traditional -- and very brutal -- weapon of Irish warriors. Performance: Drums. Niamh's a Fianna. She grew up a Fianna among Fianna. Unusual would be the Fianna who had no interest in music or dance or storytelling, but her hands were clumsy on violins and harps and she never liked the dancing her family did. She's not one of the great storytellers of her people, either. Despite all this, she was desperate to take part in the sept's revels and to show them all she was a true Fianna. She took up the drums first as a joke -- "All I'm good for is hitting things with other things, so I might as well try to make it sound pretty." She never had a great deal of interest in it until she experienced a war-revel and drummed along with half a dozen others to get the warriors' blood pumping before taking on a hive of Black Spiral Dancers. They didn't let her run to the front lines as she'd wanted and she'd sulked when she'd heard her orders, but her half-hearted drumming soon became intense, joyful, ecstatic. It turned fear into joyous resolve, and Niamh never forgot the inspiration it brought to her fellows. Merits & Flaws Merit - Daredevil: Niamh throws herself into the wildest experiences -- mostly for the thrill, often out of her innate and sometimes-slightly-deadly curiosity. She tends to survive on a combination of instinct, talent, and ancestral stubbornness. Merit - Ancestor Ally: Taichleach, a noble weaponsmith of legend, is an Ancestor of Niamh's. He is a moderating influence on the young Fianna, steering her toward a more balanced path. Flaw - Insane Past Life: And then you have Ruaidhri, famous among his people for being as berserk as the most deranged Get of Fenris. He eggs on Niamh's darker half, urging her into more dangerous, wilder situations. Some say you only live once: Ruaidhri is testing that theory and living a little vicariously through his great-times-a-hundred-or-so grand-niece. Flaw - Curiosity: Niamh's insatiable thirst to understand, to see, to experience has gotten her into trouble more than once. She's exactly the sort to gather her fellow cubs together and say 'Let's go explore the Umbra!' or 'I bet we won't really get in trouble if we read the Uktena's journal..." Flaw - Overconfident: As a result of SURVIVING all the above for a good few months now, Niamh has gotten rather cocky about her chances. She's not helped by either of her Ancestors, either: sometimes she believes she really does have their experience, knowledge, and strength. Backgrounds Kinfolk: Elizabeth and Roland Murphy, Niamh's aunt and uncle. Niamh lives with them in Crystal Springs. Fetish: The fetish is in the Fianna Tribebook Revised. Here's what they say: Though not a combat fetish, it is highly prized by Fianna smiths; some of the finest weapons, including several klaives, were forged with these hammers. For every two successes on a Gnosis roll, the smith gains +1 die to the metalworking (Craft) roll. In addition, items crafted with the hammer reduce the difficulty for a Rite of the Fetish by one; such items are more pleasing to spirits. An earth or fire spirit is bound into this fetish. (Level 2, Gnosis 6) The hammer was given to her by Gideon, one of her teachers back home. He was a cousin -- the son of her mother's brother but a good seven years older than her. She worshiped him since she was a little girl and followed him around like, well, a puppy. It was Gideon who first put a hammer in her hand and taught her how to work metal. She was twelve when he started teaching her, and he recognized the talent she had. He didn't just encourage her because of her talent, though. He recognized that the work calmed her and focused her where nothing else did. Meditation, deep breathing, even fighting never seemed to center her the way that metalwork did. There was something about the act of creation that harnessed her destructive tendencies and brought her into check. He gave her the gift partly for affection, partly as a link back home, and mostly so that she would always remember that she could be more than just a weapon. She could make things that last. Gideon's greatest fear where his beloved cousin is concerned is that she will burn out bright and fast and die before she really lives. His parting gift wasn't a weapon -- she made her own axe. Instead, it was a tool with which she could serve better than by dying a glorious death. History (Note: We went back to Niamh after she wrote her little autobiography and had her cut out a few of the anecdotes, the rants, the rambles, and the bad language. Mostly it was the bad language. Can you believe this thing was six pages before we sent it back to her? -- ed.) They say I've got an Irish temper, but I'm not Irish. Dad is legit Irish: born and raised a Kinvara boy. Technically I was born there too, but Mom's a citizen and we were back in the States before I was even crawling. So I guess I'm not really even first-generation, except Mom and her family have been in America since eighteen-ninety-something. Mom doesn't say I've got an Irish temper. I'm what she calls a Dark Ahroun: born during a lunar eclipse. See, a lunar eclipse happens when the moon is full but the Earth's shadow falls on it so that it's obscured. Lucky me: I was born just when the moon was completely obscured. The other Cubs back home called me a Ragahroun, at least when they weren't calling me a... *cough* witch. And before you ask, yeah, I'm pissed that I'm still a cub. We're in a time of war, right? We don't have time to make sure every new kid is a perfect angel. I know the rules, I follow them when they make sense, and I never got anyone killed, not even me. A thousand years ago, I'd probably be a Fostern by now and kicking some Wyrm tail, right? They treasured kids like me, the ones who ran face first into battle and gave better than they got. If I lived through the first year, I'd be leader of the pack. At least, that's the impression I get from Ruaidhri. Ruaidhri is, uh... Don't laugh. Ruaidhri's my about-a-hundred-and-fifty-generations back ancestor. We're all born with a bit of our family in us, right? Well, some of us get more than others. I got a devil on my shoulder with Uncle Ru. He was some badass -- er, he was some great mighty hero of our tribe, crushing a lot of skulls and the like. He's a little pissed off about being dead, if you must know, and sharing brain space with me and Taichleach. If Ru's the devil on my left hand, Uncle Tal's the angel on my right. Ruaidhri punched the crap out of a lot of people, but Taichleach built and crafted and forged some of the finest klaives of legend. He had this one crumpled leg from a wound that never healed but he had two good strong arms and he never suffered ANYONE to tend his sickness, got it? Uncle Tal was awesome. But yeah. Those two guys share my brain space. And with two ancient ancestors fighting in your dreams, having Mrs. Perfect for a mother and hearing "Your mum never made that much trouble when she was a cub" and being filled with the hormones every teenager gets, not to mention a monthly that's a real killer, well, it's no surprise my folks pulled me out of public school when I was twelve. I got homeschooled with some of the other sept kids instead, and it was a real good move. Can you imagine going through the Change in gym class? Getting bullied? Walking home and getting jumped? I could have torn through a wall if they'd left it up to chance, but instead we went out into the middle of nowhere on what they called a "camping trip", just a few tribemates and me. I didn't even realize at the time that they were almost all Garou. It was a great time -- telling stories around the fire, dancing and drumming and singing. I'm not all that great at the singing, but I dig the drumming. I didn't realize we were going out to a place that I'd never been. They'd never mentioned it to me because it was kind of dangerous, and I'm just the sort to seek that kind of thing out for a laugh. So there I am, sleeping under the stars, and then I wake up to a jostle and I'm all alone in the woods with no idea where I am. It's a full moon and bright enough, but it's also trees all around and cold and the place is full of sound and I'm a city girl, all right? Never more than a day away from my iPod? So ha ha, very funny, I'm trying to find my way back, getting more and more pissed off because the only other option's being scared witless. Little did I know I was being hunted out there. See, the plan was to hide my shifter-uncles around the path back to camp, but either I took the wrong one or I managed to get past them. They were going to jump out on me as Glabro or whatever, scare me senseless. What actually happened was that something else got a scent of me. There's still wild boar out there in the Catskills, and this one was no ordinary Porky. Not only was he about four feet at the shoulder, he was also Wyrm-tainted all to hell. There's some sketchy caves out there; well, anyway. I get knocked into a tree and onto my rear and it's just a piece of luck I didn't get gutted by those tusks. I get a look at this thing and I think it's a freaking bear, all stinky and huge and with one eye gone and really maggotty and disgusting and I'm all alone in the woods and this sucker is going to murder me. The messed up thing is? I never even think of running. All I can think is one word: Kill. And I did. Uncle Conor was on the scene in time to watch my Crinos claws make some very stinky sausage out out of Mister Piggy. He'd shifted back to Homid, thinking he could calm me down that way, but I was so pissed off that I'd been left out there to get attacked that I almost took HIS head off. Everyone else showed up around then, though, and as I was pulling back my arm I suddenly got knocked on my face by something big and strong and heavy behind me. It was Mom. Mom, who's five foot nothing and wispy and smiling and a Theurge known for being able to heal even the nastiest wound, Mom who I'd never actually seen shifting before, had shifted to her own war-form and pinned me to the ground like it was nothing. She knew how to calm me down. I could smell her, I knew it was her, and I knew I was safe and home and perfectly fine. The first thing she said when she shifted back and I shifted back? "I am so proud of you." She hasn't said that a whole lot since. I haven't exactly done her proud. My temper kind of gets the best of me sometimes, and I do good stuff, but I say what I shouldn't to who I shouldn't and I do some stupid things now and again. The only thing that really gets me to calm down is metalwork. I've loved it since I first got to see my cousin Gideon at work. He can make anything from axes that could smack your head off to the most delicate filigree. He says I have the touch -- he even gave me his best hammer as a going-away gift. I want to be that good. I've been working on it since I was fourteen, and someday I'll be the best in the world. I'll kick butt, I'll take names, and I'll leave a legacy of work and glories behind me. I just can't do it at home anymore. They think it's maybe because we're on a caern of War -- I just can't keep my temper. As soon as I do something good, I end up doing something to screw it up. But I have an aunt here in Crystal Springs and I can make a fresh start. Maybe the caern here will be a calming influence. Maybe I'll really grow here, really make a difference. Maybe I'll make my mom proud. Etc Coming soon? Category:Past PCs